Saturday, December 1, 2012

Hi December!

Yesterday I went to pick up my son from his great-grandma's place. Outside of the building, several older women were gathered, enjoying the late Florida afternoon. Normally I pick the entrance I use to avoid having to talk to too many people, but the alternative was walking out the other door and around the building and dang it, Silas is heavy in his car seat.

Of course one of the older ladies cooed "Look at the baby!" which I'm not going to pretend like I minded. I love showing off Silas, and I love the inevitable response to the inevitable question: "How old is he?"

"He's just 12 weeks, today," I said, smiling.

One of the other ladies looked shocked. "I thought he was at least eight months!"

Another chimed in with the "he's gonna be a linebacker some day!"

And a third, wearing a black tank top, asked me what I was feeding him. She said, I couldn't possibly be breastfeeding.

"Oh, well, actually, I am."

This lady looked at me, without missing a beat and said, "How? You don't have breasts. Show me what you feed him from."

Well, despite the slight, sudden urge to rip off my shirt and prove that I did, in fact, have breasts, I didn't do that. I knew better. I just smiled and said, "Yup, he's been breastfed from day one."

The other woman made a comment about formula being perfectly fine after breastfeeding for the first six weeks. It certainly wasn't my place to begin going on about the benefits of breastfeeding, so I agreed: "Yeah, generally I've found that feeding your baby is the best option. Babies, they seem to like that best."

The women laughed. The black tank top woman asked me if I ate food. I laughed and assured her I did. They told me motherhood has been kind to me. I thanked them and declined to offer to show them the stretch marks that covered my body.

As I wished them a good afternoon and walked away, I thought about how much I love the fact that this baby situation is working out for me. See, it's probably no secret, but I love being out of the ordinary. It is, in a lot of ways, how I define myself. So having a ginormous little baby, especially while I am tall and skinny, is a great contrast and I love it.

(It is also why I love driving the Sebring, but you already knew that).